Local Economic and Employment Development (LEED Programme)

Spatial productivity for regional and local development – 3rd meeting

7 February 2019 Trento, Italy

Organised by the OECD Trento Centre

The OECD Spatial Productivity Lab (SPL)

The OECD Spatial Productivity Lab (SPL) is a dedicated research laboratory that works with local and global partners to improve our understanding of the spatial dimension of productivity growth, the relevance of links between different types of areas and how regional policy can facilitate productivity growth, creation of better jobs and increased well-being.

The OECD Spatial Productivity Lab at the OECD Trento Centre for Local Development is an integral part of the OECD Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities. The mission of the Trento Centre is to build capacities for local development in OECD member and non-member countries, working directly with policy makers at all levels of government.

Focus of this meeting

Natural disasters and firm resilience in Italian industrial districts

This paper performs a firm-level empirical analysis of the economic impact of the sequence of earthquakes occurred in 2012 in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna, and addresses the question of whether the localization of a firm within an industrial district mitigated or exacerbated this impact. The findings suggest that the earthquake reduced turnover, production, value added, and return on sales of the surviving firms, at least in the short-term. In addition, the debt over sales ratio grew significantly more in the firms located in the areas affected by the earthquake.

Resilience in Italian Inner Areas

This paper focuses on inner areas in Italy according to the classification of the Italian National Strategy for Inner Areas (SNAI). It analyses the trend of the potential structural change between inner and non-inner areas while controlling for the effect of the crises in the inner areas to assess their resistance to the shock. Results show that the more the peripheral the areas the more they switch in their industry composition. However, preliminary evidence shows that this switch follows a different trajectory with respect to the National trend.

Participation

The event is open to experts, civil society and all interested parties upon registration.